‘The antithesis of apathy’: Alaska’s student government leaders are resolute at Juneau conference
- Mark Sabbatini
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
Hundreds gather at JDHS to vote on teacher benefits, social policy and other issues, with many presenting results of those resolutions to legislators at the Capitol
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
If it were up to Marck Ortilla and a few hundred of his student government peers, a state Senate floor vote Monday on a contentious bill boosting retirement benefits for public employees would be a foregone conclusion.
Unanimous approval of a resolution supporting the bill (House Bill 78) was one of the first official actions by student representatives at the Alaska Association of Student Government (AASG) spring conference that began Thursday at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé.
Ortilla, the student body president at Barrow High School, and a group of his classmates brought the resolution with them to the Alaska State Capitol on Friday afternoon. Among the stops he and nine other representatives from Utqiaġvik and Kotzebue made was at the office of their state senator — Donny Olson, a Golovin Democrat who that morning voted during a Senate Finance Committee meeting to send the bill to a floor vote.
“I think this really matters in our community, in Barrow especially, since we're losing many teachers this year,” Ortilla told the senator during a 20-minute group meeting. “We're losing 11 teachers at Barrow High School due to how expensive it was or the retirement plan — there wasn't really any benefits for them. And I feel like this resolution is really going to help them”
The students during the three-day conference also considered a multitude of other resolutions on matters ranging from an age-of-consent bill that also has been subject to political controversy this session to the type of regalia allowed at graduation ceremonies. Some were carried over or updated proposals from previous gatherings of the twice-yearly conference that takes place at various locations throughout Alaska.
Hosting the spring conference in Juneau meant participants were able take time from their sessions at JDHS to visit the Capitol just as state lawmakers are beginning the intense work on key proposals that typically occurs during the last month of the legislative sessions. For many students it was their first time inside the building, and a rare chance to directly interact with lawmakers aside from when the local members visit the students’ schools and hometowns.
“I know that there's some people who really want to get into Alaskan policy specifically, so going through the buildings, and learning about the history of the building and everything, and what everybody does on a day-to-day basis is helpful for those who want to get into policy,” said Aurora Sweeny, a Kotzebue student representative, after her group’s meeting with Olson. “And even those who maybe are on the fence it sort of gives them a view of what they'd be getting into, and why it's so important and what they do here. And I think even in a broader sense for those who don't necessarily want to get into policy that are in student government those are important conversations.”
Attendance at the Juneau conference was somewhat smaller than the fall conference at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, due to the longer and less-central travel distance, said some of the students attending last October’s gathering. But a more distinctive tone was set during the opening ceremony at JDHS on Thursday evening that included a presentation of Juneau’s history, plus performances by the Eagle-Raven Dance Group and the national title-winning JDHS cheer team.
“Definitely this opening ceremony has more cultural involvement compared to APU’s where they didn't have a dance at all,” said Maddie Wade, freshman class president at North Pole High School.
A reminder of the influence students can have on policymakers was offered during a keynote speech by Mischa Jackson, education liaison for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska. She noted the “Yadaa.at Kalé” portion of the high school’s name originated as a student effort that resulted in the school board adding the Tlingit name in 2019.
“It just takes one moment,” she said. “It takes one opportunity of looking at the world around you, to seeing the world around you, to listening, to start putting together and weaving together all of the stories that you're hearing and seeing, and the voices of your peers, your colleagues, your elders, your community members. And it just takes one moment and you'll feel it, and then that's when change happens. That's what transformation happens.”
The opportunity to help make such changes are why many of the participants said they got involved in student government, and coming together at the biannual conferences helps reinforce that mentality.
“I think we get to see an example of what we can do when we come together,” said Kassidy Gillard, 15, a sophomore class representative at North Pole High School. “Whenever we're all in our individual schools we seem pretty small as individuals, but whenever we come together, like a whole state comes together and they show how much they care about these issues, it really puts in perspective how powerful we can be.”
The diversity of representation of attendees at the AASG is vast since, as Alaska School Activities Association Executive Director Kassandra Mirosh told the students, “some of your schools graduate over 400 students a year and some are lucky to graduate even one student.” In addition to the urban-rural split of communities such as Anchorage and Kotzebue, there’s also traditional public school and correspondence/homeschool delegations.
But Grace Hersh, a representative from Family Partnership Correspondence School in Anchorage who said one of her hopes was to address teacher standards, said she didn’t feel overlooked being among the smallest of the delegations.
“I think when it comes to a different perspective nobody at AASG really cares how big you are,” she said.
The opening evening also featured a reception where the student delegations and state lawmakers were able to chat informally — although most of the discussions, as might be expected, stuck to the serious business of politics.
Rep. Mia Costello, an Anchorage Republican meeting with students from her district, noted she was a senior class president 30 years ago, and talked about her education-related bills, including one promoting apprenticeships and another making specific investments in schools. She also offered advice to a student representative about a resolution expanding permissible regalia at graduations.
“I suggested to them that they amend it and allow them to throw their caps up at graduation because they know they're not allowed to,” she said.
The student delegations had no reservations about showing their colors during the Juneau conference, wearing clothes and carrying various items with their school tones. The nametags were also highly individualized — Ortilla’s had more than half a dozen ribbons attached under his with sayings such as “Home is where the Wi-Fi connects automatically” and “You look really funny doing that with your head.”
Such expressiveness and openness is one of the appealing traits of being part of the conventions, said AASG President Francis Myers, a Sitka High School student who said he tried lots of other school activities and often was made fun of for them before he joined student government.
“That's why I love AASG so much, because looking at this crowd of very colorful shirts we are the antithesis of apathy,” he told his peers on opening night.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
